A Quote by Roelof Botha
Founders should think of their company as a product and build it and shape it with the same passion and care.
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It's important for founders to think about how they would build their company from scratch - again.
The reality is the only place a company's culture is going to start and end is at the beginning of that company. And it always starts with the founders. So if you can't create an environment of founders and founding employees who are going to represent the company you want, then you are never going to get there. You have to look at your own network and find what you are missing. So if you don't have a female or someone who has an international perspective or a person with a bio degree, but those perspectives matter to the firm or product you want to create, then it's never going to work out.
Since your company is the product that makes all of your other products, it should be the best product of all. When you begin to think of your company this way, you evaluate it differently. You ask different questions about it. You look at improving it constantly, rather than just accepting what it's become.
The problem we encountered with Wave at Google was that we became very isolated from the rest of the company. And in the time that it took us to build Wave, the rest of the company changed direction. I think that has a lot to do with why the product failed.
You can build the most important companies in history with a very simple to describe concept. You can market products in less than 50 characters. There is no reason why you can't build your company the same way. So force yourself to simplify every initiative, every product, every marketing, everything you do. Basically take out that red and start eliminating stuff.
It's all well and good having a women's Tour de France - which I think we need and I think we should have. But I think we should slowly build it in and not just go 'Bam!' with three weeks over the same course and same length of time as the men's.
The stage of investing that I do is seed stage, so it's really early. Here's a pair of founders who maybe have a prototype. They have a little bit of traction, maybe one employee, tops. At that stage, you really, really can only evaluate a company based on those founders and what they've been able to build. It's very, very team driven.
The goal of a private company is, first, zero to one: Get past the product-market fit; figure out whether people actually care about what you're trying to build and someone will pay you money for that. That's the zero to one problem.
If you go to business school, and you put a product out there in the world, and it's working, the logic is to keep putting the same product out there. And I think that really bumps up against the creative process - and moviemaking, generally. And I think that our company really pushes against that.
It's the first company to build the mental position that has the upper hand, not the first company to make the product. IBM didn't invent the computer; Sperry Rand did. But IBM was the first to build the computer position in the prospect's mind.
I said, 'Who said African American founders can't build a billion dollar company?'
When a company is charging money for a product - as Evernote does for all above its most basic service, and same for Dropbox and SugarSync - you understand its incentive for sticking with that product.
If you want to go and build a company that exists in Silicon Valley, then you should go and do it there. But if you want to build a company that is Australian, that represents your culture and your being, then you should do it in Sydney.
In order to sell a product or a service, a company must establish a relationship with the consumer. It must build trust and rapport. It must understand the customer's needs, and it must provide a product that delivers the promised benefits.
However small a company, its founders should try to expand people's opportunities and choices.
If you are a single product company, then you are a contract company. But if you enter the retail market, then you have to be a multiple product company.
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